Work & Career: How to Increase Your Passion & Productivity at Work

How do you increase productivity and reduce stress at work?

What does it really take to increase your work life productivity and passion, have more fun and get a greater sense of satisfaction and pleasure? 

Here are my seven key strategies, gleaned from my research over the last 20 years, to do just that. Each one has  shown itself to be the way for success and world-class results in business and personal life.

As you read, you are going to discover powerful and practical strategies that will re-generate your Passionate Performance and take you where you want to go, regardless of where you are at this moment in time.

In fact, if you are facing significant challenges in your life at the moment, I think you will be able to see which of these strategies you might have overlooked that could have led to your current situation, so take out a pad and pen and make some notes as you go along.

1. Write out your goals in the areas of Mind, Body and Spirit

We all have goals but, despite the many books that describe the huge benefits of writing out your goals, only a few people actually do it!

I have found that the greatest hindrance is the difficulty of choosing from the many wonderful goals that are available to us, and so we never get started. All I can say is, “Please start!!”. An easy and practical way to start is to write out goals in the three areas of mind, body and spirit. Some examples are:

Mind:

1. Get a university degree
2. Attend a sales course
3. Learn speed reading skills
4. Learn a language

Body:

1. Do an Ironman triathlon
2. Run a marathon
3. Burn 10 kgs of fat (rather than ‘losing 10 kgs of weight’)
4. Buy a new car
5. Buy a new home

Spirit:

1. Learn to meditate and then do it regularly
2. Build a great relationship with your children
3. Learn to love
4. Find your life partner
5. Make a significant community contribution

I recommend that you write out at least five specific goals in each of these three areas.

The next step is to have goals in these three areas that are short-term, medium-term, and long-term. That would make a total of 45 goals – a great start and not too difficult to achieve.

2. Accept that you create your own unique picture of reality

No-one sees or experiences the world as you do! You are a unique person with a unique set of experiences. It is those experiences that create your interpretation of life and lead to your ability to be creative and solve problems in highly unusual ways.

Because many of us were ostracised for being different when we were younger, we have learned to conform and behave like others. If you do, your brilliant potential contribution to life on earth is unlikely to be realized.

 3. Know yourself ! Self-knowledge is the key to wisdom

Who is a ‘wise’ person? I believe it’s the person who can make ‘good’ decisions, rather than ‘bad’ decisions. However, because each one of us is unique, what is good and bad depends on how we view our own lives.

Therefore, the more you know yourself, the wiser you will become and your ability to make great decisions will keep increasing.

4. Access your courage to take risks and make mistakes

Each one of us must be willing to continually change, because the world around us is continually changing. However, as Buckminster Fuller in his book Critical Path so aptly put it, human beings only learn through trial and error. Our changes require us to learn and to err, but the unfortunate fact is that we have experienced punishments for making mistakes.

If you are not willing to face the pain of making mistakes, you simply will not learn quickly enough. In fact, much of the pain is really self-generated, through your unique reality. Therefore, when you understand why it’s necessary to err from time to time, you will be more accepting and ready to do so, and you’ll be able to tap into your courage reserves.

5. Be willing to be uniquely you

Be willing to be unique, and to be criticised for it! You will eventually be loved and admired for this rare talent.

Understand how the pressure to conform will limit your chances of success. Just one fact should demonstrate this to you: not many people can afford to retire at 65 years of age without Government assistance! So, if you behave like most people, your chances of independent living are limited.

6. Invest 5% of your time and income in your own learning, growth and development

You are your greatest asset: what are you doing to continue to maintain and enhance this asset? Brian Tracy, American Sales Trainer, describes you as the ‘managing director of your own personal services corporation’.

We each have 168 hours given to us each week. Spend at least 8 hours per week, 5% of your week, in some form of learning.

Also invest 5% of your income on your learning. Explore with your accountant the various ways to help you structure this investment in a tax-effective way.

The learning and growth must cover all three areas of mind, body and spirit.

7. Take responsibility for your life: don’t blame other people

This is the hardest one of all! We live in an analgesic society, where people simply want to be given a pill to solve their problems. One of these ‘pills’ is to blame other people when things go wrong – but that doesn’t solve anything. In fact it makes it worse.

True freedom comes to you when you accept that you are responsible for everything that happens to you. The only person in the world that you can change is you. When you change you, your whole world will change. Accept responsibility, and you can change the world and your unique experience of it.

Finally …

If you implement these seven strategies, you will access your unique Passionate Performance in a way that delivers you the life that means success to you. I believe that our future success in a globalised environment depends on every person taking responsibility for our country’s future, and not leaving it to others!

About the Author – Charles Kovess

After 20 years of high level legal and business experience, Charles knows that most people have a powerful and under-used ingredient they can use to drive successful changes in their life. He turned his back on the law in 1993 to share those success strategies as a professional speaker, educator, facilitator and coach. Charles is known as Australasia’s Passion Provocateur, and travels the world promoting the power of passion. For more information see Our Experts page.